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Think back to when you were 10-years-old. On your wall was probably a poster of your favorite car. One day, you told yourself, you would save up enough money to see that car fly off the poster, and into your driveway. It was a sense of accomplishment, a sense of pride that you had worked virtually your whole life to finally afford your dream car.
Not only is it something you’re going to have to pay for to get fixed, it’s almost as if someone was taking your pride, your dreams, and part of your soul even, and scraping it down to the bone.
One columnist thinks that this is a totally acceptable form of human behavior. The only stipulation being that you drive a “swanky” car.
Catriona Stewart writes for the Herald Scotland. In hear latest piece, “Swanky Cars Are a Symbol of a Screwed Up World — Key ‘em All,” she defends a man recently convicted of keying an Aston Martin. The man could receive jail time, but Stewart think that both the Aston Martin and Aston Martin owner deserved the act of vandalism. Here’s an excerpt:
“Gary Brissett spotted an Aston Martin V8 Vanquish parked outside a supermarket and decided, for no discernible reason, to take his keys from his pocket and run them along the length of the vehicle’s bodywork.
Mindless, pointless vandalism that caused £7,741 worth of damage.
Good for him.”
At this point, your blood should be boiling. Imagine if this was your car. Imagine if someone was suggesting that the car you’ve worked so hard to attain be keyed for absolutely no reason out of spite and jealousy. But it gets worse:
“I hate to generalise but allow me to generalise. You can’t spend more than a house worth on a car and claim the moral high ground.
Why is it impressive or desirable to show off your wealth buying a car with a top speed of 201mph when you can’t take it more than 70mph?
Surely a chap confident in his man credentials would be happy in a Nissan Leaf, ostentatiously plugging it in to charge at a city centre rapid charging point, winking at the ladies going by as he shows how much he cares about the future of the planet.”
By that logic, surely a woman confident in her body should wear a burlap sack to the red carpet, correct? The generalization here presented by Stewart is both ignorant and ill-informed. The same stereotypes she attempts to combat in her professional reports, she’s displaying here disgustingly in a single column.
Vandalism, in any form, is not an acceptable way to go about life. Promoting it is just as appalling. As automotive enthusiasts, it’s even more infuriating when you understand that she has absolutely no clue what she’s talking about.
Granted, there are those that use their vehicles misappropriately and take advantage of the great wealth they’ve been able to achieve. But does generalizing the One Percent really justify keying a car out of spite? Not at all.
Cars mean a lot to people—not only men, but women too. If Ms. Stewart thinks that someone who works hard and deserves to purchase such a vehicle is “ostentatious” and “all that’s wrong” in the world, then she has no place writing in any form of media.
Journalists and enthusiasts like Chris Harris and Alex Roy are taking the fight to Twitter, as they should be, showing their disdain for the column.
Overall, it’s a sad state of affairs when someone as atrociously ignorant and naive as Ms. Stewart suggests keying “swanky” cars to her readers out of spite. As Harris points out, if it weren’t for companies like Audi, BMW, Mercedes, in fact (all of which advertise on the Herald Scotland), she wouldn’t even have the ability to push her ill-informed opinions onto readers. Nor pay her rent, for that matter.
The ignorance in her column is almost unfathomable.
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